September 11, 2006
Marking the wrong anniversary
Our Fine President is set to speak to the nation in a few hours on this the fifth anniversary of the al Qaida attacks on what is since being referred to as “the homeland.” Now why we consider fifth anniversaries more special than fourth or sixth, I’ll never know, but the ever so reverent buzz does seem a whole lot bigger this year. Of course all the hubbub could be due to a certain party of people who want to make a big deal of things to try to take the public on back to a time when we were all united for the same cause and they hadn’t yet botched program after program and war after war. I’m not saying it is, but there is one of them national election things in a couple months.
Back in 2001 everyone was busy comforting each other, waving flags and learning for the first time that some really crazy and determined people really hate our country. The Republicans were rushing all kinds of laws through Congress to increase police powers and thus make the country safer. They did big things like reorganize the government to better prepare for disasters, and that seemed to work out real well last year when Katrina swamped New Orleans.
We went to war in Afghanistan to take out the people who attacked us and that seemed to be going really well. Of course all the big bad guys were able to hide and it proved kinda hard to catch them. So next we head off to war in Iraq, in the name of Sept. 11 and keeping our nation safe from “Weapons of Mass Destruction” which proved to be a memorable acronym and a few expired and inert shells we sold them back in the fun fun 80s.
Our Fine President and his retro 80s cabinet promised those WMDs on more than one occasion along with other such assurances like the war being short, easy and welcome in Iraq and the notion that Iraq’s oil wealth would pay to rebuild the country, sparing American taxpayers the expense. Three-plus years into this war we seem to have hit a plateau that is neither short, easy, welcome in Iraq nor cheap.
We were also plied into war on the idea that Saddam Hussein and al Qaida were in cahoots to take down America and the ever-so-precious American way of life that is our gift to the world. Those connections were explained in much detail and like the WMDs they’ve turned out to be fictional. The Sept. 11 Commission found no operational connection between Iraq and al Qaida, and just this month we’ve learned that our postwar intelligence shows that Hussein was trying to capture the leader of al Qaida in Iraq and did not benevolently tolerate his presence or aid him in his work. I wonder if that might be because Hussein was a megalomaniacal despot and he probably saw al-Zarqawi as a threat. So, while the war on the al Qaida terror network was thrust upon us, it did not involve Iraq in any way before we moved in.
But now there’s no need to bring up the past. It’s not going to help us get out of this mess or win this war on terror Our Fine President is leading us through. Besides occasional photo-op events and symbolic handovers of various powers and responsibilities progress in Iraq seems non-existent. Sectarian violence continues and the rate of American casualties is fairly steady while the rate of Iraqi casualties is simply staggering. The American approach to post-Saddam Iraq has been disorganized and remains that way three years in. It’s almost as if there was no plan for this part of the operation going in, and you know what, it turns out there wasn’t.
Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid just told Virginia Daily Press that during the planning for the Iraq war Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld threatened to fire any general who spent any time planning for occupying Iraq after Hussein’s fall. According to Scheid, Rumsfeld said we shouldn’t plan for the part of the war that would require lots of troops because “the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.”
I guess that means the administration knew it might not be short, but they really hoped down from the pits of their stomachs that it’d all go swell and they’d have changed the world and shown everyone who’s boss and all that good stuff. With such hopes and pure heart and noble intentions they just knew nothing would go wrong and there’d be no need to plan for the messy parts of things. And gee, since we couldn’t start our needless war if it would be too tough for the wussy American public to stomach, we wouldn’t want them to hear about planning for tough times as it might scare them off.
So we’ve got no plan and apparently the course we’ve been staying for the last few years is a random path that we just hope eventually will lead somewhere. Come on, we’ve been on it for quite a long time and we don’t want to have to backtrack all that way do we?
“Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament.”
So while Our Fine President will be wrapping himself in the smoldering flag of Sept. 11 and telling us we all need to come together to win this war on terror and save the civilized world, think about what he’s really done in that war. Our ports are no safer, our disaster response is atrocious, our enemies are still out there, the two remaining axises of evil are joining the nuclear club, our military is bogged down fighting in a country that had nothing to do with this war, our international reputation is soiled and not one person has been held responsible. I wonder if Our Fine President is worried about that whole responsibility thing happening if the Democrats gain control of Congress next year?
Should we start calling him President Griswold?